The Enfield Poltergeist (S7, E4)

Summary

Haunted Cosmos – S7, E4: The Enfield Poltergeist

Hosts: Ben Garrett & Brian Sauvé
Date: May 13, 2026
Theme: Investigating a world that isn't just stuff—focusing on the legendary 1970s Enfield Poltergeist case as both a historical event and a window into human fascination with the supernatural.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ben and Brian lead listeners through the story of the Enfield Poltergeist—the infamous case from 1977 North London that captivated the world with its blend of eerie phenomena, intense media coverage, skepticism, and enduring legend. Through immersive storytelling, firsthand accounts, and reflective discussion, the hosts wrestle with what makes such stories enduring, their historical roots, and the limits of skepticism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Are We Drawn To Darkness? (00:06–02:00)

• Brian’s Introduction: Humans have always been fascinated, even comforted, by tales of haunting. "History contains no shortage of allegedly true encounters with such things, and we listen to those stories with rapt attention. But why? Why are we attracted by the darkness in this way?" (B, 00:10)
• The show aims to explore not just the facts, but why such stories persist.

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2. Folklore Connections: Brownies, Boggarts, and Poltergeists (02:00–09:00)

• Cold Open (Storytelling): Ben narrates the story of the Gilbertson children and a household Brownie (a type of British house fairy) that turns into a destructive Boggart after feeling mistreated—drawing direct lines from ancient folklore to modern ‘poltergeist’ accounts.
• Insight: The folklore emphasizes that "the fae, it seems, are sometimes fickle folk." (B, 04:00)
• Thesis: What we call ‘poltergeist’ today may be the same phenomena cultures attributed to fairies, spirits, or boggarts.

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3. The Enfield Incident: Setting, Family, and Early Activity (09:00–19:00)

• House & Family Profile:
  284 Green Street, Enfield—an ordinary home "on a relatively Nothing Street." (B, 10:50)
  Hodgson family: single mother Peggy and children Margaret (13), Janet (11), Johnny (10), Billy (7), already enduring hardship after being abandoned by the father.
• The Build-Up:
  Odd phenomena (moved furniture, unexplained knocking) are noted but rationalized away—until August 30, 1977, when activity becomes too intense to ignore.
• First Major Event:
  A sequence of escalating phenomena: strange shuffling sounds, distinct knocking, trembling beds, and objects moving in plain sight, culminating in full family panic and police/neighborhood involvement.

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4. The First Investigations & Eyewitness Testimony (19:00–39:00)

• Notable Moments:
  • Neighbors Vic and Peggy witness unexplainable knocking that mimics Vic’s pattern (20:00–22:00).
    • "He knocked a couple times and stepped back. Nothing. He stepped up and knocked again, but this time, about five seconds after he stopped, a response came in the form of his own knocking pattern, repeated back to him." (B, 22:15)
  • Constable Carolyn Heaps records in her official statement that a chair inexplicably moved "a full four feet across the floor before her very eyes." (B, 23:45)
• Psychic & Skeptical Analysis:
  30+ documented eyewitnesses—not all can be easily explained as tricks. The girls are accused by some skeptics of "ventriloquism" or carefully orchestrated hoaxes, but the number of independent accounts challenges this narrative.

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5. Deep Dive: The Possession & Escalation (39:00–54:00)

Iconic Evidence (40:00):

• Levitating Janet:
  The widely published photograph of Janet apparently levitating above her bed is described in detail, "her adolescent hands splayed at her side... hovering at least three feet above the floor." (A, 40:10)
• Escalation:
  • "The voice tormented them day and night." (B, 07:00)
  • The Voice:
    Maurice Gross, SPR investigator, records deep guttural voices during unexplained activity.
    "This is my house," the voice declares through Janet's body, recorded at 2:45am. (A, 48:37)

Maurice Gross' Approach and Background:

• Gross becomes personally invested, perhaps influenced by his daughter's tragic death and his search for confirmation of an afterlife or continued consciousness. He "believed that [his daughter] had sent him a message from beyond," fueling his interest in the paranormal. (A, 54:10–55:24)

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6. The Historical and Cross-Cultural Context (28:27–39:00, 34:00–37:00)

• Global Folklore Connections:
  The hosts connect poltergeist phenomena to Mesopotamian Etemmu spirits and northern European myths of ‘mealing’—restless or vengeful spirits of the improperly buried dead.

  • "This is something that's been happening for as long as people have been around." (A, 33:16)

• Universal Human Pattern:
  Every culture has a conceptual place for ‘restless’ or trickster spirits, illustrating a recurring human concern with the afterlife and unseen forces.

• Philosophical Take:
  "The demons are behind it 100%... The reason that there's the element of, like, 'depending on how you treat it, it'll be good or bad'... Trying to let people be friends with demons." (B, 39:41)

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7. The Limits of Skepticism vs. Gullibility (57:23–62:20)

• Skeptical Bias:
  Both excesses—uncritical belief (Gross) and radical skepticism (most materialist psychologists)—are critiqued.
  • "If you continue to treat them as if there's no chance that that's true, it actually could be a failure of love and service to them." (A, 58:02)
• Faith vs. Skepticism:
  The hosts highlight that radical skepticism toward the supernatural is not neutral or ‘epistemically humble’ but actually a vice.
  • "The ultimate vice is disbelief." (A, 61:49)
  • "Sinful skepticism and unbelief is soul damning and soul destroying." (B, 62:20)

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8. Eyewitness Testimony and Its Value (65:01–70:11)

• Philosophical Reflection:
  Eyewitness testimony is not infallible, but it remains a crucial part of truth-seeking in both law and theology.
  • "The strength of the case is supposed to get stronger with the cumulative collection of eyewitnesses." (B, 66:13)
• Application:
  Multiple, independent eyewitnesses strengthen the case for extraordinary claims.

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9. The "Hot Close": The Aftermath, the Hoax Controversy & Enduring Mystery (71:08–End)

• Admission of Some Hoaxing:
  Janet and Margaret admit to fabricating some activity (about 2%, they claim), mainly to maintain interest and hope for help. The hosts note the complexity:
  > "When asked why she faked anything at all, she explains that she feared people would lose interest whenever the activities slowed for long stretches of time...she staged small tricks to ensure her would be rescuers wouldn't abandon the case." (A, 71:45)
• Enduring Unexplained Elements:
  Despite the admitted fakes, much remains genuinely unexplained—levitation, documented phenomena, and severe trauma.
• Lasting Impact:
  The Enfield poltergeist "secured a lasting place in the Western imagination. What, if anything, really happened? Frankly, we don’t know." (A, 80:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The fae, it seems, are sometimes fickle folk. The boggart began with nothing but mischief...But it didn’t take long for things to escalate towards malice." (B, 04:10)
• "You have new things that happened recently, like in living memory, and then we give a name to that: Black Eyed Children or Poltergeist. But then you go back, and you find out in the lore and the folklore of a region that that same thing was happening, but it just had different names historically..." (B, 32:27)
• Regarding skepticism: "Skepticism can land in a vice. And it is one of the arch vices of the modern west, post-enlightenment modern west, is that we just tend to ascribe everything to the material." (B, 61:03)
• On faith: "The ultimate vice is disbelief...Like actually skepticism is the defining sin that will condemn you." (A, 61:49)
• On eyewitness testimony: "The strength of the case is supposed to get stronger with the cumulative collection of eyewitnesses..." (B, 66:13)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:00 – Brownies and boggarts: making the folklore connection.
• 09:00 – The Hodgson family & the earliest Enfield disturbances.
• 19:45–23:45 – First neighbor and police constable involvement with documented phenomena.
• 27:44–39:00 – Ben and Brian reflect on eyewitnesses, folklore, and skepticism.
• 40:10 – Describing the famous photo of Janet "levitating."
• 48:37 – The disembodied voice: "This is my house."
• 54:10–55:25 – Maurice Gross' personal backstory and motivation.
• 57:54 – The limits and dangers of skepticism.
• 65:01–70:11 – Philosophical reflections on eyewitness testimony.
• 71:08 – The "hot close"—admissions of hoaxing, enduring mystery, and legacy.

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Tone & Banter

Ben and Brian keep the discussion both intellectually serious and playfully conspiratorial, with detours into British folklore, ventriloquism jokes, Disney soundtrack preferences, and gentle ribbing of review commenters. The tone oscillates between eerie, speculative narration and humor-laden reflection, keeping even the philosophically dense sections relatable and engaging.

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Conclusion

The episode powerfully interweaves narrative, analysis, and skeptical interpretation to probe the Enfield case’s enduring auras of terror and fascination. Every attempt to explain away strangeness is balanced by another, more troubling mystery—leaving listeners hovering, as the hosts put it, "within any framework except the paranormal." Ultimately, the Enfield Poltergeist remains a testament to both the human craving for the supernatural and the elusiveness of certainty.

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Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Indigo Sundry Soap Company.

[B]

From the dawn of recorded history, mankind has written of that which terrifies him. Among the ubiquitous fears of man, the haunting claims a position of prominence. The ghost, the poltergeist, the creeping thing in the shadows of a place. History contains no shortage of allegedly true encounters with such things, and we listen to those stories with rapt attention. But why? Why are we attracted by the darkness in this way? Why are we drawn to it? Join us in this episode of Haunted Cosmos as we wrestle with this question and more through the dark and wandering maze of the Enfield Poltergeist. The Gilbertson children gathered with tangible excitement around the kitchen's corner cupboard. The smallest of the three, a girl, opened the birch door, and the eldest, a boy, commanded the middle child, who was also a boy, to remove what filled it. The younger boy did so at once. They were a team for now. Despite all the rivalry and bickering that normally accompanied such a trio, they were at this moment individually committed to working together for their common purpose. Not a minute passed before the middle boy smiled up at his siblings. The floor was covered in dried goods and miscellaneous household supplies. The cupboard was empty of all that could be seen. The three little faces crowded into the open cabinet and stared with anticipation at the planks of wooden siding at the rear of the space. There, where a coiled knot had once been, there was now only a dark and empty hole. Nobody knew when the knot had fallen out, and nobody cared. All that mattered was that it had, and what replaced it was was an empty hole through a plank of birch through which one could see an entire world. But the children were not interested in seeing this world. They cared only for the little plaything that lived just on the other side of its threshold. You see, these were British children living in times before our androgynous modernity. Weeks prior, all of the Gilbertsons, including the parents, had noticed the presence of a type of fairy in their home called a brownie. The nameless brownie, as with all brownies, was playful and helpful. It cleaned some things and cracked practical jokes from time to time, innocent pranks, like pushing a ball just out of reach of whichever child happened to be reaching for it. The children laughed, other family members laughed, and the invisible fairy would then tidy up the toy and retreat back into the elf boar contained in that corner cupboard. The brownie was a welcome dose of color in an already colorful home. As the weeks passed, however, the the children began to return the brownies jokes with jokes of their own. Exactly how they Began toying with the unseen is unknown. What is known is what it eventually escalated to. Thus we return to the threefold crowd of happy little faces staring into the elf boar in the siding of the back of the cupboard. They had discovered that it was the boar the Brownie used to pass from fairyland into this world. And they decided to start pranking their little friend in his own home as much as they could. The children thought it was just innocent fun. The eldest boy pulled a stick over his shoulder and shoved his arm between his siblings heads. They watched intently. He set the end of the stick on the edge of the elf boar and then jammed it in as hard and as fast and as far as he could. They all pushed themselves away from the cabinetry and waited for the Brownie to do its trick. Right on cue, the stick flew back out of the boar and across the room, striking one of the children who'd been waiting to catch it. It was the little girl. She didn't catch it. They all laughed. And that was the game. What the children failed to realize was that this game, though fun for them, was becoming less and less fun for the Brownie. More than that, both children and parents failed to remember what might happen if a Holmes Brownie takes offense at something they do or say to it. The Gilbertsons Brownie, now deeply offended and annoyed, changed its disposition towards them. Gone was the goodwill. Gone was the fun. Gone were the innocent hijinks, the bullying of the children. For that's what the Brownie took it for, had run its course. He was now a boggart, a poltergeist bent on turning the home into a place of misery. The fae, it seems, are sometimes fickle folk. The boggart began with nothing but mischief. Stolen bread and butter, lost toys and tools. Things moved and set where they didn't belong. One of the dining chairs was found on top of the table one morning, for example. But it didn't take long for things to escalate towards malice. And the lion's share of it was directed to the children, especially the little daughter. A voice manifested. The creature had never spoken before. It was an unnatural voice, gravelly and strained, as if holding back some deep anger. It taunted the girl. It told the parents secrets the children would rather have concealed. It threatened harm, both psychological and physical. The voice tormented them day and night. And then the knocking came, thuds against the inside of the walls from some unseen force, crashing and screaming and the sound of breaking wood and shattering glass. George Gilbertson, the patriarch, had had enough. He decided to move the family away and packed them up immediately. As they passed by the neighbor's home on their journey, the neighbor called out to George, are you flitting it last? And George replied, aye, Johnny lad, we're flitting, see? And after he said this, a voice echoed from the carriage as if from the cloth covering itself. It began in that same dark, malicious tone, but by the end of its words the voice mimicked George's own perfectly. It repeated him hey, Johnny lad, are we flitting, see? Thus the Gilberts learned two very hard truths. First, the boggart was attached not to their home but to them. Second, it had learned a new and haunting skill, mimicry, copying and speaking in the voice of anyone in the family. And so the boggart sealed itself in the fearful imaginations of older British folk. In the centuries that have come and gone since then, people in Britain have grown beyond the childish superstitions of their forebears. They we know that there's no such thing as brownies or boggarts. Of course, we rest easy with that certainty fixed firmly in our minds. And yet, every once in a while something happens that calls that comforting materialism into question. A haunting A poltergeist. These are simply new words used to describe the timeless phenomenon of things like brownies and boggarts. And one such story reigns over all others in its ability to confuse, convince, and terrify anyone willing to examine it in in depth. This is the story of The Enfield Poltergeist. 284 Green Street, Enfield, North London. A house like all the rest. Two stories, half of a 1920s municipal duplex. Beige, with a small strip of garden in front of a lower floor, bay window in the back, a narrow lawn stretched just long enough for children to run back and forth. Low ceilings, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and dining area, and a living room, all crammed into 850 square feet. A nothing home on a relatively Nothing Street. In 1977, a family already plagued by misfortune lived inside. They were called the Hodgsons, and they consisted of a single mother, Peggy, and her four children, 13 year old Margaret, 11 year old Janet, 10 year old Johnny, and 7 year old Billy. Just over three years prior, the patriarch of the family had abandoned them. He doesn't come into the story at all, but that was the aforementioned misfortune. It was the monkey wrench that turned an otherwise prosperous family into one of tempestuous hardship. At the edge of the poverty line, Peggy worked hard and overall kept her head, but the water was always rising and she hardly ever felt secure in those Days. The four children, led by the two eldest, Margaret and Janet, were good to their mother by all accounts. They lived on Green street for three years before real and unmistakable strangeness added itself to their practical stress. And yet, in retrospect, those three years had not been entirely free of oddities. The tired and busy Peggy occasionally woke up in the morning, descended the stairs, and found a kitchen chair moved across the floor. Maybe a lamp had shifted slightly, revealing a patch of table clear of dust. Faint or loud knocking sounds greeted her in the night. All these things made her wonder briefly, but none gave her real concern. The chair must have just been a child getting water in the middle of the night. The lamp was the consequence of the boys wrestling. The knocking was just the neighbor, after all. Only a wall separated them from another family living their own lives. One can't blame Peggy for taking no or little notice of these trifles. But on August 30, 1977, she was forced to take notice, forced to reckon with what would become something much, much darker in the lives of her poor little brood. The children were already in bed. The boys had been fast asleep for nearly an hour already. The girls, as was their habit, were still up and chatting the night away. Their light was off in their small room, and in a moment of silence between thoughts from either girl, a shuffling sound came. It was over by Margaret's bed. Like slippers dragged by lazy feet across the weathered carpet. The eldest child jerked her head toward Janet. Janet already looked back at her with wide eyes whose whites showed even in the darkness. Did you hear that? Yes. But the noise stopped. Minutes passed. Just before the girls were ready to move on and chalk it up to nothing whatsoever, the knocking started. Three loud, clear, slow, and deliberate knocks reverberated through the room as if they came from behind the wall just above Janet's bed. Her wall did not adjoin the neighboring house. The pair ran downstairs in fright and told their mother that something was happening in their room. It was just the house settling, dears. Go to bed. Only a few more minutes passed before the knocks returned, louder this time. Their homogeneity of cadence and tone made the settling house explanation fall flat immediately. Then the knocking moved. Its source was once above Janet, then Margaret, then on the wall adjacent to them, then on the wall opposite. Then the knocking began to come from two separate walls at once, just out of synchronicity enough for the girls to notice. The pair sat up, confused, and curiosity began to turn to fear. A cold chill ran through them, and a dark sense of weight hung in the air, breathing felt like labor. Suddenly the bed started to tremble, then quake and rattle violently. Janet could hardly keep from being thrown off the bed and was forced to grip the frame's corner post just to stay on it. Mom. Mom. Both girls screamed into the night. Peggy. Diligent. Peggy ran up the stairs and whipped into the room. The light flickered on and all was still. The girls implored her. Something really was wrong. Something or someone was in the house, but Peggy saw nothing out of the ordinary herself. She saw only a normal room and its two beds, each containing a genuinely terrified child, to be sure, but each it must have just been a bad dream. You have to calm down, go to sleep. Just a bad dream. The noble lie. The lie everyone, even the liar, knows somewhere deep down to be a lie. The lie everyone accepts anyway for fear of what the truth might mean. Nothing else happened that night, and Peggy eventually went to sleep wondering if perhaps it had all just been a dream shared between the two sisters. But she was not about to get off so easily. The following evening her troubles returned with redoubled effort. More knocking. Objects moved from one side of the room to the other, daughters lying on the floor upon Peggy's entry, as if thrown from their beds. It was getting harder to repeat the same lines. A bad dream, a settling house. Just your imagination. They had lost all of their comforting power, these lies. Finally she witnessed it for herself with the lights on and the children lying terrified in bed. The dresser slid from the opposite wall and inch slowly, purposefully toward Peggy. The inanimate thing suddenly took on an air of malice that made the grown woman more frightened than she'd ever been. She ran toward it and pushed hard against it, but it resisted. She pushed harder and overcame whatever unnatural force tortured them. After more pushing, it was back firmly against the wall. She stepped back to examine her work and with the despair of Sisyphus, watched the dresser slide toward her again. And then the knocking came back, knocking and thudding and pounding from all over the room and into the hallway. Peggy stepped out to follow it and traced it to the boys room. Of course, Billy and Johnny were awake and battling their own fears. It moved from there and into her room. The ceiling, the floors, the windows, the walls. It was all a macabre symphony, sending the strained woman into spiraling confusion. And then again, with the suddenness of a light switch, it all stopped. Peggy calmed the children once more and put them back to bed. What else can you do? She then made herself ready for bed and lay in her sheets, exhaustion prompting her to Rest and maternal instinct prompting her to stay vigilant. Such a state of competing interest made any rational thought toilsome for her. Her mind, instead raced without direction. This only made her all the more exhausted. But this, too, stopped abruptly at another sound. It was not knocking. It was not loud or demanding. It was subtle and heavy. It was breath. The sound of heavy breathing, like that of a man. And it came from just outside her closed bedroom door. She silently slid from the bed and tiptoed over to the door. She pressed her ear against it carefully. A man was breathing right up against her threshold. She whipped the door open and screamed in anger. But nothing was there. The next day, resolved to do something proactive, Peggy begged her incredulous neighbors, Vic and Peggy, a different Peggy, mind you, to come inspect the home. Vic was a big guy, austere and no nonsense, just the type of man to offer his distraught neighbors some comfort on a good day to explain it away. And this potential comfort, some logical explanation from a trusted friend, was exactly what she was hoping for. What she received instead solidified her ordeal as something that would not be so easily escaped. When Vic entered the house, the knocking started immediately. There was no escalation this time. It was loud, frantic, and coming from everywhere. Vic was shaken by the sudden violence of the home. The house itself, so Vic later mused, was like a vindictive aggressor. Still, he mastered himself and began checking the walls in the midst of the tumult. He pressed his ear against them but discovered nothing. He would chase the source whenever it moved, and it made him run up and down the stairs multiple times, like it was toying with him. Eventually, it stopped, and the quiet that followed felt almost more unsettling than the noise had been. Everyone felt as if something was watching them from a place they couldn't see. Timidly, Vic placed his hand against a wall, hoping to discover something different with a simple touch. But it was just a wall. He knocked a couple times and stepped back. Nothing. He stepped up and knocked again, but this time, about five seconds after he stopped, a response came in the form of his own knocking pattern, repeated back to him. Whatever other sense of dread Vic felt in that moment is lost and therefore speculative. But something switched in the man. His courage vanished. His skin turned pale. He began to visibly shake with nerves. This strong, composed man who knew how to handle himself crumbled into a panic stricken shell of his former self. At the sound of ethereal knocking inside the walls, he turned to Peggy, the owner of the house. Peggy, not his wife. This isn't right. You need to call the constable. And then he left. Peggy left alone again, took the counsel of her neighbor and picked up the phone. The constable who arrived was named Carolyn Heaps. Little could she have predicted that she would become the first officially documented witness of the infamous Enfield Poltergeist that day. Upon entering, all seemed normal. Peggy told Heaps what had been occurring. Heaps patronized her by taking notes and nodding along, but in her head she'd already decided a frantic and stressed single woman imagining things or being pranked by her own kids. Then, halfway through Peggy's story, a loud crash sounded in the house. At the time, only those two women were home and neither of them had moved. Heaps jolted up and turned to look around. When she glanced towards the kitchen, she did a double take. One of the chairs was scraping across the floor, slowly but undeniably moving. She rushed over and checked for wires or some trick, but couldn't find anything. Still, it moved. In the end. Here keeps recorded in her official statement that no crime had been committed, that the police could do nothing but that a chair had inexplicably moved a full four feet across the floor before her very eyes. She left uneasy. Peggy, watching her leave, felt crushed in spirit. That night the new routine repeated itself. Knocking objects floating or flying across bedrooms, girls and boys crying and screaming in fright. Peggy faithfully tried to make it all okay, and eventually it stopped and the kids fell asleep. Peggy soon did as well. It was late, but in the witching hour she woke with a start. There was a voice, a gurgling, raspy, strained voice moaning in anger, coming from the walls of her own room. Her heart sprang to a sprint and she felt beads of fearful sweat roll down her face. She listened intently. What else could she do? As the voice finally formed its first words, this is my house. And all of this was merely the beginning. 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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Brian, let me paint you a scenario. You wake up in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. The swamp ape has flooded your yard overnight. What do you do?

[B]

Ben, I wouldn't even know where to begin in answering this question.

[A]

Okay, well let me answer it for you. You call the good old boys at Drain My Lawn and they'll rush right over. These drainage experts are the swamp ape's greatest foible. They can remove his habitat in no time. Plus their sister company, Fence My Lawn can follow up the drainage with a fence that is scientifically proven to keep swamp apes out. And it also looks really good.

[B]

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[A]

Hey everybody. Welcome to this fourth episode of Haunted Cosmos, seventh season running. What up everybody? We got Evan on the switchboard. Evan on the switch, Evan on the turntables. We got Brian on the mic.

[B]

Brian on the mic. Dude, how's it going?

[A]

It's going great.

[B]

People are always asking like, what is Haunted Cosmos? They never stop to ask, how are we?

[A]

How.

[B]

How is Haunted Cosmos?

[A]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're doing good, you know, we're fine. It's 1:38pm Mountainside Standard Time on April 23.

[B]

This cut is sending me into the ground.

[A]

You're on a cut?

[B]

I'm on a cut.

[A]

That's nuts.

[B]

I've been on a cut for 22 weeks.

[A]

Has anything weird happened since you've been on this cut, like in the last couple days?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I can't talk about it. We can't say we can't talk about it.

[B]

Dude, way. Way to bring it up.

[A]

I promise. I'll promise. It's really funny.

[B]

All right, now. Nobody. Guys, welcome back.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Hey, it's been really good.

[A]

We have a special offer that we're gonna give listeners. Do we today? Yes, we do. Would you like me to describe it?

[B]

I would like to know what it is, because I might take advantage of it.

[A]

Okay. All right. Well, that offer is as follows. If you don't know, we have a Patreon channel, and on that Patreon channel, we give subscribers early access to main shows. We give subscribers ad free access to main shows. We give them early access to the graveyard shift in between seasons. We also do monthly live streams with Brian and I, and we do a weekly, like, exclusive content show called the Dusty Tome. Only to patrons. All that is depending on what tier level you're at.

[B]

Whatever.

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But we have that. So if you love Haunted Cosmos, how

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are we giving all this away?

[A]

Well, we don't.

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How are we.

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Like, we offer money. No. Yes, it's a trade.

[B]

But, like, it's $1,000 a week, right?

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No.

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For that number of benefits, the lowest

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tier, if I'm Remembering Right, is 5.95amonth.

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That's insane.

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Isn't it? 5.95 the value, Evan, is it 5.95?

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Okay, you're telling me that I can get all that, like a significant amount of that for 5.95?

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For the same amount for 1 gallon of gas in the state of Utah?

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Ben's coffee order at Starbucks costs $18. That's insane.

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It's just eight black coffees.

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No, it's just fill this up with caramel drizzle, this Trenta cup, and whipped cream. That's all.

[A]

So, yeah, we have that. So anyway, we have a Patreon. If you love Haunted Cosmos content and you want more and other content like it that no one else gets to hear, then you should check out our Patreon page. And if you are listening to this episode right now, we have a special offer. I don't know how long it's going to last. 24 hours. 24 hours.

[B]

24 hours.

[A]

Only for 24 hours after this episode drops. It's the fourth episode of season seven. We are going to offer you 40% off your first month at Patreon.

[B]

What up? That's insane. And in addition to that, you can get all the normal benefits of Patreon. You can also this year, you sign up for you can also get a 24 hours only.

[A]

You can also get a JPEG zoomed in of me drinking from this massive water bottle.

[B]

If you screenshot it right now and then convert that. And convert it to JPEG to jpeg.

[A]

Yes, you can get that.

[B]

Then. You can get that. But you have to sign up for Patreon. We'll know if you screenshot it without doing it. We'll know.

[A]

We'll know because we have friends in the nsa.

[B]

Hence our next episode that we're going to be doing.

[A]

Should we announce it as a warning?

[B]

The next episode that we're going to do? I actually only think people in the FBI should listen to it.

[A]

Yeah, we'll give the disclaimer in the episode. We'll go ahead and spoil it. Now, if you are a child, I'm telling you, you're not allowed to listen to.

[B]

This episode is fine.

[A]

This episode's fine if you're a child.

[B]

But next episode after that.

[A]

And also, like ladies, it's horrifying. Just viewer listener discretion heavily advised.

[B]

Because we're gonna be talking about women, children, men. Nobody should listen to it.

[A]

No one should listen to it. It only exists for our own, I guess, destruction.

[B]

It was basically, we're like, we should cover this horrible, horrible conspiracy. Slash, like, things that we think happened

[A]

and things that definitely happened.

[B]

That definitely happened. And then you were like, sunk. You go in, you're getting the sunk cost, and you're like, it's all true and it's horrifying and demons are involved and people.

[A]

And now we have to do it.

[B]

But then you're like, this is truly horrible.

[A]

And so anyway, it's Pizzagate. Keep an eye on connection to Epstein and the Epstein files.

[B]

It's going to be truly.

[A]

And the thing is, like, there's no way to talk about it without talking about it. So that's why we're saying, like, it's horrifying.

[B]

Like, just we're not going to be like over the top graphic or anything like that, but we are going to tell the things that are happening.

[A]

So we'll see in episode six.

[B]

Yeah, so see in episode six is basically what I'm saying. We're just going to forward it to the FBI and hope that they didn't actually do it themselves and hope that they will put a stop to it.

[A]

We're definitely not going to forward it to the FBI unless we do. Absolutely not. But.

[B]

But what if we do?

[A]

We are going to forward it to Hillary Clinton.

[B]

You know what I want to start though, Ben? Changing the subject here. We're going to talk about Enfield in a second. I want to add a segment to Haunted Cosmos.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's called our favorite review.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Review of the week.

[A]

Did you find one already?

[B]

I found one that I really like. This one is a five star review. A lot of my favorite reviews are one star reviews.

[A]

This one could have been a one star.

[B]

This one is kind of funny because here, I'll read it for you. It says I listen with my husband and overall it's a good show. Which you want to hear. Anytime you put your heart and soul into something, people will be like, overall it was all right. My husband loves it. Again, subtext. I actually don't, so I'm giving it five stars. Just being a good submissive wife and all that. Hey, the patriarchy approves.

[A]

Good for you.

[B]

I will say this is the part I liked. I will say that listening to Ben and Brian often feels like I'm talking with my 10 year old son. After he, he spent too much time reading comics. He thinks everything he says is hilarious.

[A]

What does she know?

[B]

You know, first of all, women are not funny. And I think we all know that. What does that have to do women. Well, that's a woman reviewing it. Women aren't funny. How can they identify good humor when they see it? Like everything we see.

[A]

Well, I thought you was. Because I was like. I thought that review was funny.

[B]

Well, but not on purpose. Women are never funny on purpose.

[A]

So true, Kim.

[B]

So that's my favorite. You get to pick the next one.

[A]

All right, I'll be on the.

[B]

Although we not next episode.

[A]

Yeah, we are going to give our best giveaway next episode. No, I'm kidding.

[B]

Episode six you could do.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Episode six. Going to be a crazy awesome review. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe just a more fun topic.

[B]

We're just going to be like oops. Only banter. Because after we'll need a record.

[A]

Yeah. We'll need a little like. Yeah, a little. What's the word?

[B]

Like a pick me up.

[A]

Like a decompression. Yeah, you know.

[B]

Okay, let's talk about.

[A]

Let's talk about the infield poltergeist. One of the things that I want to ask just right off the bat, Brian, is you lived in London. Yeah. Did you hear about the infield poltergeist?

[B]

No, I don't remember hearing about it. But I found out I lived like 18 to 20 miles as the crow flies from the house where it all happened in London.

[A]

That's probably like a what, four hour drive.

[B]

Well, let me, it was about 32 kilometers. Oh.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

I was. We were in Middlesex county in icingham, which. Before 1965, this house was in the same county, but then they redid the counties, so it was really close. And I've looked it up on Street View. The house today, it's still there and it looks very close to, like, the type of neighborhood that I lived in. Kind of like houses. Very close or connected to each other.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it was really weird to go, go. Oh, this was the late 90s. So it could have been me. Could have been me. Could have been me. I could have been Enfielded.

[A]

Okay. But so it wasn't like a big topic of conversation among. Among the school children back in the day.

[B]

Well, like the. The Brits might have kept it from us.

[A]

When did you live there? Like 1980.

[B]

It was like 1873-8. No, it was 1995-98.

[A]

Oh, so it was in the 19s.

[B]

Okay. It was in the 20th century.

[A]

I forget that you're four years older than me.

[B]

Yeah, I am very old. All right.

[A]

No, that's cool. Have you heard about it, like, before this episode? Yes. Had you heard?

[B]

I had heard about it before the episode. I just. Not when I lived in England.

[A]

What's been your take?

[B]

It's one of those things where I'm. And we'll see as the story unfolds. We're gonna get into some of the, like, the skeptical analysis of it a little bit, but also the pushback on the skeptical analysis of it because a lot of people did that. One of the things that was really interesting to me was the police officer in which you heard about. In the Cold open. Yeah. The lady police officer. The constable. First of all, leave a five star review if you liked our British accents in all of the readings today, leave a thumbs up, like subscribe and a five star review if you didn't like it as well.

[A]

Also become a patron if you liked or didn't like or didn't like.

[B]

Really either way. I thought that was a really interesting piece of the. In favor of something supernatural having happened because it was like on record in a police report early in the story before there was much attention given to the matter.

[A]

Yeah, it was really early on.

[B]

The neighbors corroborating the story, having gone in and heard the knocking. And that was when the kids weren't even home.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I do think that there are so many. It's like over 30 eyewitnesses that are documented. And then there are a bunch that are more anecdotally documented from people visiting that said I experienced this or that or the other thing. And not all of it could have been easily hoaxed. Yeah, some of it. I mean knocking and stuff like that. We'll talk about the voices.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Later. That might have been some kind of like voice throwing sort of situation. Like watch, watch this. My mouth's not gonna move. Oi, there's some beans. So like wasn't that amazing? Yeah.

[A]

Like you can see how that some people can do that. It's a natural.

[B]

An expert ventriloquist like me, I can do that on demand. So maybe the 10 year old girl, the 11 year old girl, like maybe she was a master ventriloquist as I am.

[A]

Right. Yeah, that's possible.

[B]

So it could be. There are some rumors about that, but they. A lot of the skeptical analysis relies on things like that. A 10 or 11 year old girl being really good at ventriloquism.

[A]

Yeah. Like basically being like David Blaine.

[B]

Not breaking character, like never giving it away. Because even until. Didn't the mother die?

[A]

I don't. Yes, she's dead. I don't remember when she died.

[B]

She died. But she maintained the veracity of the story.

[A]

The whole family did.

[B]

Yeah, everybody did.

[A]

Like we'll talk about it a little bit more in the hot close. There were things that the family said that led people to be like, wait a minute.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

And we'll talk about that.

[B]

Like they were pranks almost.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

That they did.

[A]

Yes. And they admitted to it. Yeah. But they, they follow, they always follow that up with. But genuinely 98% of it was real. We couldn't explain it, you know, so take that for what you will. To me, it's always struck me as one of those cases where because of the number of eyewitnesses, it's hard to ignore. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things that maybe it is naturally explainable.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And we should. And maybe it'd be responsible to say

[B]

that it probably is through human trickery or something.

[A]

Right. But a lot of it is like. Yeah, that's weird though.

[B]

Can I. I want to pick your brain a little bit on this. You know what I'm saying?

[A]

Take out your toothpick and let me open my brain.

[B]

Open your cranium. Cause I'm going to pick your brainium.

[A]

About to get lobotomized.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Live.

[B]

Okay. Wow. That escalated quickly. One of the things we've talked about before, a theme I think shows up in this episode. Even in the cold open, we kind of hinted at it a little bit. You have new things that happened recently, like in living memory, and then we give a name to that. Black Eyed Children or Poltergeist or something like that. But then you go back and you say, and you find out in the lore and the folklore of a region that that same thing was happening, but it just had different names historically, maybe some names even that people are aware of, like the Boggart.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So what do you think about that? Is this poltergeist kind of language or phenomena? Is it just a modern experience of something that's been happening for a long time?

[A]

I think so. Whenever it's actually real, which, I mean, cards on the table, I do think that there was something unseen fishy going on in the infield case, at least at certain points. But the reason that I wanted to include that Boggart story at the beginning is because I want the listeners, viewers, whatever, to remember that these aren't just new modern stories. These are stories that show up all through history. Now the Boggart story is like, hey, Enfield happened in England. The Boggart thing also happened in England. They had a name for it back then. And it was, it was something that in those days they were more willing to just say, yeah, this unexplained, oh, that's a boggart. That's the fairy, that's the Boggart. You can see him through the hole in the wood. You know, like it's a whole other fairy world. And obviously we're not saying that they were just 100% right, but I just want to get people to understand that this is something that's been happening for as long as people have been around. And it's not just in England, it's not just European. There's mythology from Mesopotamia, Babylon, Syria, that talk about, what's it called? The Etemu. And the Etemu for them is just basically what we would call the spirit or the soul. And so the gods, they created man out of clay and then also the spirit of a slain God that had rebelled against the rest of the pantheon, which says a lot about Babylonian anthropology. But that's beside the point. What they were trying to say, though, was that when a human being dies, there's some life force that continues to exist. And for the Mesopotamians, normally that life force would go to be in the realm of the dead. But if the ant or if the progeny of that person didn't take care of the dead, like a proper burial, or even forms of worship and offerings and going on religious pilgrimages to the Graves of your ancestors to give food and trinkets and ornaments and stuff like that, that if you didn't do that, that Etemmu, that undead spirit, would come back and would haunt the family.

[B]

It's like a mealing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, the.

[A]

For those that don't know what that is. Can you explain it, please?

[B]

It's a northern European folkloric stream, I think Nordic, but I could be wrong about that. The mealing was allegedly, like, a baby that was essentially killed by its mother. Like, an unwanted pregnancy, shameful kind of situation. And she, like, had the baby and then, like, left it out to die.

[A]

Like, exposure.

[B]

Exposure. And the spirit of the baby would allegedly haunt the family and do them harm even. And maybe even. Especially if the mother went on to be, like, lawfully married and had her legitimate children, it would try to kill those children. And the only way to deal with it was to go and find the child and give it a proper burial.

[A]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

So this is a. I'm not saying that's true.

[A]

No. But, like, same exact full trope. Yeah. And you even see this popping up in more directly Western tradition with. You can read about this in Homer and in Virgil, the ancestral cult that the early Westerners definitely believed in. Most of them believed in it, but all of them practiced it, where you had to give a proper burial, and then your ancestors basically become your own family gods. Yeah. And so they have a level of power over them.

[B]

Like Mulan.

[A]

Exactly like Mulan. Also like Mulan. I was going to say Pocahontas, but I don't think that shows up.

[B]

To be a man out of you.

[A]

Yeah, to be a man. Hey, put in the comments. What is your favorite Disney princess soundtrack? Mine is Tarzan.

[B]

Oh, Phil Collins.

[A]

Phil Collins went horde.

[B]

You can't beat that one.

[A]

Dude. He was.

[B]

No copying, though. You can't pick.

[A]

Are you kidding me? Evan. Tarzan definitely has a love. Interesting. And she's like a Disney princess.

[B]

Evanescence. Come on. Come on, man.

[A]

Evan doesn't know what he's talking about.

[B]

He doesn't know what he's talking about.

[A]

Hey, all you ladies out there. Evan is taken.

[B]

So imagine if by the time this episode comes out, she broke up with him. She's not knowing how silly you feel.

[A]

Dude, what the heck? That was so.

[B]

I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying it would be ironic.

[A]

That was so uncalled for.

[B]

Because he has to edit the episode.

[A]

That was so uncalled for. I mean, wow.

[B]

Put the camera.

[A]

Terrible.

[B]

No, I want to apologize. I want to apologize.

[A]

I'm not to switch for you.

[B]

I want to apologize to my guy, Evan, and his lovely lady. And.

[A]

And.

[B]

That was uncalled for. Okay, that was uncalled for.

[A]

I think that was good. Thank you. That sounded.

[B]

That's my bad. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. My bad.

[A]

Okay, so mine's Tarzan. What's yours?

[B]

Well, Tarzan. So if I can't say Tarzan, I would have.

[A]

Let's say you can't say Tarzan.

[B]

But. But serious. Come on, Mulan. I mean, the feminist tropes are strong, but, like, to be a man, you must be swift as a coursing river.

[A]

Is true.

[B]

Mysterious. Dark side of the moon.

[A]

I am so swift. I'm very mysterious.

[B]

Don't stand there and tell me that that doesn't go hard. It does, but. Robin Hood, the whistling.

[A]

Evan, what about you? Okay. All right. Well, Evan, it's probably frozen. It's probably the one. What was the one in, like, New Orleans or Coco? Like one.

[B]

I haven't seen any of those.

[A]

All right, so anyway. Anyway, the only reason I bring any of that.

[B]

Any of that up, especially Disney.

[A]

Yeah. Is. Well, you brought up Mulan, not me.

[B]

That's fair.

[A]

Is just to say that not only in the east, not only in England, but really in, like, all the human tradition.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's this idea that people had that there was some kind of spirit being that might haunt you.

[B]

It might be a trickster. It might.

[A]

Could be part of your family, could be not.

[B]

It could mess with you. Or it could.

[A]

Or could help.

[B]

Horrifying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Evils to you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Depending on how it felt that day.

[A]

Right. Or how you treated it in the tradition and all that I'm trying to say is, A, that's a ubiquitous thing. I think that's interesting. But B, why was it a universal belief? Maybe it's because sometimes they were experiencing something that they couldn't explain with. With purely seen or normal means.

[B]

Are you ready for a 4D to 5D chess take?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The demons are behind it 100%. Okay. But hang on.

[A]

That goes with us. But hang on.

[B]

The reason that there's the element of, like, depending on how you treat it, it'll be good or bad for you. Trying to let people be friends with demons.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? Like, get along with them. Oh, don't worry about it. And also just treat it good.

[A]

Be thinking, like, what are they gonna think?

[B]

Yeah. Like living in the fear of the demon.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

You. New theory on haunted cosmos.

[A]

Well, I think maybe on that note, we should go into that middle, our middle scripted section, and unfold the story a little bit more, and then we will discuss further. On the fringe. The picture showcases the melancholy scene of lower class living in the 1970s. Pink wallpaper blotched with spots of brown. Small beds with uncovered box springs on either side of the room. The box springs themselves are wrapped in blue polyester. The mattresses are topped with burnt orange blankets. All of this is extended nicely by a thin carpet whose pattern is a cacophony of different colors and shapes. But taking up the center of the frame is something entirely out of the ordinary. A girl. She's very frail, and abject horror can still be discerned despite the picture showing the all only the profile of her face. Her adolescent hands are splayed at her side and her whole body is hunched over in a slight pike position. She's hovering at least three feet above the floor. Behind her, tucked into the bed, lie her older sister and one of her younger brothers. They look on with fatigue and sorrow. It's a torture they've witnessed often enough for it to become boring to them. But it's not so regular that they're completely numb to it. At least not yet. One can only imagine the facial expression of the mother, Peggy, who is no doubt just outside of the frame. This describes one of the most infamous pieces of documentation to come out of the infield case. Janet, who quickly became the favorite of the supposed demon, levitating in the center of the bedroom, totally out of control of her body. And this evidence came quickly on the heels of Peggy Hodgson's desperate attempt to figure out how she could get all of the horror to stop. Following the voice first speaking to Peggy, things worsened fast. The children started hearing the voice, too. More furniture moved. The girls and boys both suffered the wrath of the unseen malevolence, shaking their beds and tossing them around. The police were called again and again and again, and nearly every time they visited, the result was the same. They witnessed something totally inexplicable, but couldn't do anything about it. Still, they came at every call, if for nothing else than to comfort Peggy and remind her by their testimony that she wasn't crazy. Unfortunately, whatever devil was overseeing the haunting appeared to grow stronger with each instance of reaction and attention from the family, neighbors and police. Peggy was stuck in a whirlpool of woe with no means of escape. She could not ignore what was happening. Pure human instinct forbade that, not to mention the maternal instinct on top of it. But her fear only guaranteed that the stakes would continue to rise. Her sincerity was sealing her doom and descent into despair. Thus, on September 7, 1977, Peggy upped the ante. In an attempt to flush out the monster with too much attention, she called the Daily Mirror newspaper and asked for a visit. She did it to get answers. Surely someone else in the country had experience in such matters. Right. And that same day, a journalist and photographer arrived at her doorstep. Their names were Douglas Bentz and Graham Morris. Upon their arrival, each took note of the evident anxiety in the entire family. Most of all, Janet stood out as a girl in a bad way. She was dizzy and lethargic. Her speech was at times totally incoherent, and it was all the time scattered. The purple bags under her eyes betrayed such a total lack of sleep that both Bents and Morris were inspired to the utmost pity. I just wanted to stop, she told them. But they could not find the right words to reply with, so they didn't. After the first hour of meeting the family, as if on cue, the activity commenced. What had been nothing more than an odd scene of quiet nervousness suddenly erupted into noise and violence. The furniture in the living room trembled on the floor and banged against the walls. Books flew off the home's few shelves as if thrown with great force. From the kitchen came a booming and crashing sound like heavy stomping, followed by the fall of some object. After running to see what it was, the group found a chair turned over. They presumed it had been lifted and then dropped. An oversized Lego brick sped through the air and struck Morris right between the eyes. The sting and suddenness made him drop his camera. Vince, next to Morris, ducked just in time to avoid getting hit by another flying toy. He looked at where they had come from and there was nobody there. Both men turned and fled the house without saying goodbye. Without so much as a prayer, muttered under their breath, they sped back to the office, where that afternoon Bentz wrote up a piece on the haunted house in forgotten Enfield. He pressed his editor to run the piece in the following day's paper, and his request was granted. Londoners awoke to news they had never expected to read in so reputable a source, a confirmed haunting in London suburbs. The public paid immediate attention. Some among the public, some so called specialists in such matters, decided to take immediate action. These men were members of the English Society for Psychical Research. One among their ranks, a senior investigator named Maurice Gross, did not wait for an invitation. On September 12, he arrived at the front door of 284 Green Street. Young Billy Hodgson looked at the upper Middle aged man with hope. You're the ghost man? Something like that. Gross tried to smile and comfort the boy with his response, but Billy continued to stare blankly into his face. The rest of the family was the same. Gross could tell. This case, this house, this family was different from the others. He got to work setting up his recording equipment. He walked the entire house, time after time, to familiarize himself with the rooms and the people and the layout, all the different colors and all the objects. And then finally, at 2:54am 3 slow and distinct knocks echoed out of the wall. Gross perked up. Is there something there? And then a single violent crash answered him from the ceiling. It made the whole home vibrate noticeably. But by then everyone in the family was seated on the couch before him. Despite the late hour, they had already filed downstairs. After the knocking, Gross continued working. An idea. If you can understand me, knock once. And the knock came. Are you a spirit? A loud crash again from the ceiling. In mere hours, Gross had made more progress in understanding this phenomenon than Peggy and all the other witnesses had made during the entirety of the ordeal. But then came the pressing question. Are you here to hurt this family? Silence followed. Peggy started breathing heavily as she felt her heart quicken. It was a longer pause than before, but eventually two much softer knocks were heard. Is that a no? A Single knock quickly rang out to confirm, per the witness of the poltergeist, that it intended no harm. Peggy was relieved. Gross was not. He looked down at Janet, her pale expression of exhaustion, her fear, her bruises. If this demon didn't mean any harm, why had it already caused so much? The following days and nights only confirmed Gross's suspicion. He was especially struck by the level of oppression the supposed entity inflicted on Janet. The poor girl was only 11 years old, but her body showed the weathered and helpless maturity of an old maid ready to pass away. Peggy could only look on with dumb sorrow. What could she do? Wasn't she already doing all she could? Now? It's worth noting here briefly, that moving out of the house was a perilous option for the Hodgsons. Peggy could hardly work enough to sustain the little life they were trying to carve out in their infield townhome. And that was the cheapest option available at the time. It wasn't as easy as just packing up and skipping town. She owned the house. She had to worry about selling it before ever considering a move. For her and the kids, it was just not realistic. Thus the family, with the assistance of Maurice Gross and some other members of spr, who showed up intermittently, tried to walk through the trial and resolved things at the root. But they were about to learn just how costly an option this would be. The knocking continued, the shaking or sliding furniture and falling books. Yeah, it all continued. The thrown toys, the rattling beds, that continued. But new things came as well. On multiple occasions, Gross would hear the pained and bitter moans of Janet in the middle of the night. He would race up the stairs from his recording equipment, enter the room, only to witness the girl levitating off her bed, completely out of control of her body. And that's how the picture described in the opening of this section was taken. The concentrated activity toward Janet gave Gross the idea of putting his recording equipment in her room. What he captured there remains the stuff of visceral horror for all who hear of it. You see, since Peggy heard the disembodied voice nearer to the start of the haunting, and since the kids heard the voice a little bit as well, no other speech had been heard from the entity. But that was about to change in a big way. On September 22, 1977. It was 2:45am Grose's tape recorder flickered with a faint red light in the corner of the girl's room, betraying that it was recording. Janet woke and opened her eyes to quiet darkness. A nauseating pain beset her stomach. Tired and hardly lucid still, she started to moan and twist around in her bed to get a little bit comfortable. But nothing worked. Janet steadily became more and more aware of her situation, and the moaning grew louder. Her breathing was heavier. Her movements were more and more desperate, turning here and there without a moment's rest. In between, the moaning turned into a choking cough, and it was at this point that Gross, seated downstairs and asleep, was woken by the speaker right next to him. The speaker was, of course, attached to the mic in Janet's room. He was now listening to the girl's struggle. It was as though Janet was dry heaving, but the noise was more grinding, like stone on stone. It was both human and not simultaneously. Suddenly, there was silence. Gross leaned in. The quiet, he could tell through the radio, was not a calm one. All at once there came a voice so deep and guttural and strained. This is my house. Gross jumped out of his seat and ran up the stairs. He flung open Janet's door, turned on the light, and cradled the girl. She was half conscious and waking from a stupor. Her eyes, when they finally opened, spun around the room before finally settling with wide fear on Gross. He whispered her name until she finally calmed down and descended Right back into a deep sleep. She had no memory of the voice after this ordeal. Gross connected the dots. The moaning and the coughing that had been in her voice. The jerky stirring in her bed. The silence. Then the intruder speaking. Janet Hodges Hodgson had suffered the possession of the poltergeist. Its power was growing. The investigator shuddered to think of what might come next should they fail to make it all go away. How many demons, ghosts or vampires are lurking in your investment portfolio? If you're invested in the S&P 500, it's probably more than you think since it's full of companies that actively oppose your faith. Stonecrop Wealth Advisors is here to help their faith based portfolios redirect your hard earned dollars away from destructive agendas and into companies making a positive impact on society. Get the demons out of your portfolio and invest in God's kingdom while you grow your wealth. Contact Stonecrop Wealth Advisors today by visiting StoneCropAdvisors.com Haunted Cosmos investment advisory services offer through Stump Wealth Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission.

[B]

Ben, have you heard of the Jake Muller Adventures?

[A]

Oh, what's that?

[B]

A Christian audio drama. Zombies, vampires, Global conspiracies and faith at the center. I was up all night on the edge of my seat.

[A]

Is it fully immersive sound effects and cast and everything?

[B]

Yes, full cast cinematic sound. It's like you can hear the danger coming.

[A]

Ooh, so kind of similar to Hana Cosmos, but no your mom jokes and more drama.

[B]

No mom jokes yet, but yeah, tons of drama.

[A]

So it's kind of like your mom then?

[B]

Not quite. Check it [e-mail] haunted for 10% off does your outdated website give your visitors sleep paralysis?

[A]

What? What is that a thing?

[B]

Are you haunted by that logo your uncle's pet werewolf made?

[A]

Brian, what are you talking about?

[B]

If you're ready to level up your brand and website, you need to talk to Josh at Valente Creative.

[A]

What's up guys?

[B]

Josh, my guy.

[A]

What the heck? How did you just appear?

[B]

Head to Valente creative.com NCP to talk with Josh about your brand and website.

[A]

Oh, oh, this is an ad that we're doing right now. Wait, how did he teleport into this room?

[B]

Ah, Ben, I wish I could tell you, but this is an ad. You have to go to valentecreative.com NCP and reach out today. Hey Ben, I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant.

[A]

Maybe it's Grandma's Butter recipe. Or maybe it's Gray Toad tallow.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Maurice Gross.

[B]

Yeah. So let's talk about Maurice Gross.

[A]

So there's actually an interesting tidbit about Maurice Gross. Some years before the infield event started happening, he experienced something that led him to spr, the Society for Psychical Research. And it was the. I think it was the death of his daughter. It was very tragic that his daughter died in a car accident. And then. And I don't remember all the details, but I remember reading somewhere that he believed that she had sent him a message from beyond by, like, he woke up one morning and there was a note by his bed that was in her handwriting. That was like, the same message she had left him on the day that she died when she was letting him know where she was going or something like that. And his claim is that, like, he didn't write it. No one wrote it. He asked people. And it eventually led him to be convinced that there was the unseen world and that even, like, the spirits of the deceased that we know can communicate with us through that. And that led him to spr. And then some say, and you'll hear about this in the cold open with this woman named Anita Gray. I think her name is Anita Gray.

[B]

The hot clothes.

[A]

Yeah, the hot clothes. Okay. Yeah. She was saying that Maurice was just too credulous. And some have said, well, he wanted to find more and more proof because he wanted to, like, confirm that his daughter was still like.

[B]

That she was somewhere and that she was communicating. And that is such a strong pull.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Into necromancy and the demonic spiritual realm for people is just this. They want a hope of resurrection, but they. They won't go to the place where there is a hope of resurrection, which is in Christ. Instead, they go to mediums and spiritualists and, oh, I need to have a ghost encounter with my departed loved one. And it just. It does. It does really show that. I mean, you can start if you're looking for something, whether you will find it. And it didn't really happen or the unseen world will give it to you to further the deception. I think both of those things happen.

[A]

Yeah. I think it's kind of wanting to take faith out of the human experience. People go to stuff like that because they want the immediate gratification of there's hope, there's life after death, there's the resurrection and the immediate gratification thing. Like moderns get a lot. They catch a lot of bad rap for, oh, I can order something and get it on Amazon the same day. Sure, okay. But everyone struggles with immediate gratification for all of human history. And this is just one example where they, you know, God says, have faith. Believe in me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you will rise on the last day to glory. I will give you this. But you have to have faith. You have to be patient. You have to believe. And this is like a leapfrogging that, trying to twist the arms of. Of divine power to get what you want right away.

[B]

So we're talking skeptically on one hand, like you've got Maurice, who maybe had confirmation bias, wanted that narrative to be true, and so goes to investigate this phenomena and then of course finds a bunch of evidence and is very compelled by it, does all the recordings, the sound recordings of the voice and stuff like that. So there's a good skepticism to be engaged in. Do you think that skepticism can become a vice?

[A]

I do.

[B]

On the other hand, side, I do.

[A]

I've actually been thinking a lot about this for even like in ministry, where I don't think it's normal, I don't think it's common, but I do think that demonic oppression or possession in some cases is possible, like theoretically. And I've always wondered, like, okay, let's just say you make a scenario up. Let's say that there's someone that you know that you become more and more convinced, like there really might be something demonic going on here. You know, you're not excusing sin, nothing like that. It's just stuff that it doesn't seem natural, doesn't seem right. One of the things you have to eventually be willing to do is have the courage to say, I have every reason to suspect that that might be true. And so if I continue to treat them as if there's no chance that that's true, it actually could be a failure of love and service to them. And I'm talking. This is an extreme hypothetical. But if that can be possible in theory, then I do think that would be an example where a manifestation of skepticism would actually be a failure to do your duties for somebody else.

[B]

Like, if someone is genuinely possessed or oppressed by a demon and you just say, oh, it's a serotonin dysfunction, then you're not going to be treating the real.

[A]

The actual thing.

[B]

Thing that's going on, which is. And this is like. We come back to it a lot, but we don't wrestle with flesh and blood. We wrestle with powers and principalities in the heavenly places. And our Western mind just is set on the default mode to, like, it's only atoms and neurons and electrical impulses and chemical imbalances and hormonal issues. And schizophrenia is just this or that. You know, any mental thing is just any. But in scripture, we see the spiritual connected to everything from, like, fortune telling. Yeah, that's very overtly spiritual. But also to, like, convulsions. Yeah, yeah. Seemingly medical issues. Right. And then the Lord or the apostles come and cast out the demon or

[A]

they're healed, or even folly and melancholy. You know, King Saul had the oppressive spirit that was sent from the Lord and it led him to make terrible decisions. And he was sad all the time.

[B]

Like, he was sad until David showed up.

[A]

Until David played music and it gave him relief.

[B]

Yeah. My new album is out, by the way, guys.

[A]

And if you really.

[B]

If you want to, like, it's not

[A]

out by the time this drops.

[B]

What? What? When is this going to drop?

[A]

Like 13th? Pretty soon. Nathan.

[B]

Never mind. My pre orders are open, right. My album is not out. Pre orders are open. And if you support the album at, like, I think $25 and up, you're going to get the album in like a week from here, roughly. And you'll get to listen in early to the whole thing. But it does drop June 1st.

[A]

So anyway, if you.

[B]

That was a really. Does my album drive demons away? We don't know yet.

[A]

We don't know yet.

[B]

It's not out.

[A]

We don't know. Only time will tell.

[B]

Time will tell. But, yeah, I do think you're right that skepticism can land in a vice. And it is one of the arch vices of the modern west, post enlightenment modern west is that we just tend to ascribe everything to the material. We do this with our own satisfaction, too. Like. Well, it's not just that I never believe demons or Satan is operative, but it's also that I think that material things will be enough. Yeah. To satisfy my soul. And if I just got this other possession or this other achievement in my life, that would satisfy me. But we were literally made for God.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, like, Augustine said, unless we find our rest in God, our hearts will be restless. God said, eternity in our hearts.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, the ultimate vice is disbelief.

[B]

Yeah, Unbelief in God.

[A]

Like actually skepticism is the defining sin that will condemn you.

[B]

Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Faith is operative in every single good work that man does. He's operating in faith in God, believing that God is who he says he is and that the world is what God made it to be and what God says it is.

[A]

So anything not done in faith is sin. Which means anything done in skepticism towards God is wicked.

[B]

Yeah, sinful skepticism and unbelief is, is soul damning and soul destroying.

[A]

So everything from the top, like the state of your soul, there's a trickle down effect of that where like in this case, in the infield case, it's like, if you're trying to go in and actually help these people and you have a wall in your mind and heart where you refuse to admit the possibility, then you're not going to be able to effectively help them.

[B]

Dude, it's like what the evolutionist does with natural history. He looks at the world and he says, okay, we have to explain all this, but here's one of the ground rules. No divine intelligence can be involved as an explanatory mechanism for anything.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's one of the rules. So now, you know, I've given this example before. It would be like if you found an ancient papyrus manuscript with writing on it and you went to an archaeologist and you said, you have to explain this manuscript. But here's one of the rules. No active intelligence can be involved in the creation of it whatsoever. And of course you could come up with this highly implausible story about how some reeds by the Nile river dried out, there was a drought, and then they fell over on the ground. And then a rock slide came and crushed it to powder. And then the wind blew it into like some bowl and depression in a rock. And then the rain came and. And then a bird like mashed his little feet in it and he made a little paste. And then, dude, like a flipping orangutan came along and he was like. And he formed in a ball and then another rock rolled over it and flattened it and then like a fire where there was some charcoal mixed with some water. And then another bird walked in that and then he made the symbols on the page. And like you could come up with a story.

[A]

You, I mean, you just did. It was amazing.

[B]

But was it a plausible story? No, no, I well, with my acting, it might have been. Yeah. So that probably gave it the illusion, you know what I'm saying? But when we do this in the world and we say, okay, one of the ground rules. We're gonna explain every. All the bad things happening in someone's life. No spiritual explanations.

[A]

So there's two ditches. There's the. You know, the ditch that people accuse Maurice Gross of falling into. I don't know. I don't know. Who knows of, like. Well, it must be this, because I want it to be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then there's the ditch of. I'm going to examine these events with one rule. It cannot be this.

[B]

Nothing supernatural.

[A]

It's not allowed to be this. That's equally as dishonest. Like, intellectually, there's no epistemic humility there. And it actually leads to, I think, just something I wanted to ask you more about. But how. I've been thinking about this story and thinking about eyewitness testimony. Yeah.

[B]

Because so much of these stories are eyewitness testimony.

[A]

Yeah. And this one, most of its documentation is eyewitnessed. Something eyewitness. And the question is, what do we think about that? Well, okay, there's some things that we know are true. We know that God's not capricious. He doesn't command things that are bad for us or that are impossible. And so he calls and he equips. And just at a very basic level, that means that you are capable of existing in the world reasonably. And that means that you can rely on. On the truthfulness of what your senses are telling you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, if I see something, I don't have to question whether or not that microphone is there. I can say I see the microphone. I can touch the microphone. I can hear Brian talk. I know that he's. You know what I mean? But that doesn't mean that your interpretation of the sensory data is infallible.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that, like, in order to have Right interpretation, you need wisdom. And so that means you need to avoid those two ditches we just talked about. But I didn't know if you had any other thoughts on that. That's just something that I've been chewing on with this. With this story. And if not, we can just.

[B]

No, I mean, eyewitness testimony is a genuine testimony of things like the scriptures are even written on the basis of eyewitness testimony being something that you can, to an extent, rely upon. And the strength. I mean, even Paul's great retelling of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 is about eyewitness testimony. I delivered you as of first importance, what I also received that. And then he goes through the Gospel that Christ came and he died, that he rose, that he appeared to these people, then these people, and then these people all at once. And then as one untimely born me last of all. And the strength of the case is supposed to get stronger with the cumulative collection of eyewitnesses. So that is a lawful process of human investigation. We've said it before, people lie. But they don't only lie. And so sometimes we have a tendency in our modern world, when we hear firsthand accounts, we just go, ah, you must be lying. Yeah, I was preaching 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 recently. And that has a lot to do with spiritual gifts. And we were talking about, like, reformed cessationism. What it means and what it doesn't mean. Doesn't mean Holy Spirit's not active in the world and doesn't do miracles even. And I heard from several people, even in the congregation, who were like, yeah, I experienced this on the mission field, or I experienced this other thing, this supernatural healing that I bore witness to, or the casting out of a demon that I bore witness to. And it's crazy how a part of me, even though I know these people and there's a part of you that just goes, ah, no way. Then I'm like, why is that there? Because I do believe that God does that and that these are reliable people and they saw it, and even in some cases, saw it, went back a year later, person still healed kind of situation. So I do think that eyewitness testimony, while it must be tested, it's also in the law of God that it must be tested. And you can't just build a case on a single eyewitness of a thing, but that when you get multiple eyewitnesses together, that should increase your likelihood of receiving that testimony. And that is one of the reasons why I don't just discount, like, all of this world of cryptids and the supernatural as at least something. Even if it's a deceptive something pretending to be what it's not. I don't rule out, like, oh, all UFO encounters are just the planet Venus, or they're all people lying for attention, or every Bigfoot encounter is people lying for attention, or it's f. It's folklore and urban legend and every. I don't think that's the case. I actually think there are very reliable eyewitnesses to some of these things that we joke around about. And you know, whatever. But it's actually on the basis of that multiple eyewitness testimony that I'm willing to entertain some of these things as possibilities.

[A]

And I think that's why even in our show we will tell a story and depending on the quality of the witnesses and the quantity, we may poo poo on it a little bit and joke about it or we may be like, wow, think of Skinwalker Ranch. The reason that we are so compelled about something going on at Skinwalker Ranch is because literally hundreds of people. Same with Mothman and yeah, I was going to say same with Mothman. I think this is another example of that and I think that's why this case has caught the public attention so much, is it's a lot of eyewitness testimony. It's a lot of varied eyewitness testimony. There's police officers, there's journalists, there's people from SPR that maybe wanted it to be true and others that were like, no, I'm in SPR because I don't want it to be true. And then, then you get into the big wrinkle of the Hodgson girls themselves and their future testimony after the events ended. And that's actually going to be the primary focus of the Hot Clothes, which if you ask me, we're ready to go into.

[B]

Yeah, I want, you know, listen to this Hot Clothes and you evaluate. The listener will have to evaluate what you think on. Do you buy their story, their explanation of the ways in which they did admit to deceiving people?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do you think that they can be trusted at all on the basis of this? And, but, but at the same time, if they did hoax at all, you also have to embrace the idea that they were so skilled in hoaxing these little children that they pulled off.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

One of the greatest hoaxes that they,

[A]

they were masterminds of deception at 11 and 13 years old.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And I'll give you one more demonstration of one of the things that they could have been engaged in, which is ventriloquism with this message. Now listen to the hot clothes, will ya?

[A]

A striking sunset filled the October sky with deep hues of red, orange and purple. Such scenes often appear in England during the autumn months and they're always welcome. It's a magical time when the world seems richest, just before the first death pangs of winter overtake everything. Yet the richness outside out in that broad countryside was a ruse, for the heart of England had already been taken by cold darkness. Inside the little townhome in Enfield, things were morose. And bleak. The Hodgson family sat opposite Maurice Gross in the the living room. At that moment, the group did little more than silently observe one another. Words truly fail to describe the level of fatigue painted on the children's faces. Of course Janet stood in a league of her own, but Peggy, too, was beginning to crack under the strain. How long could she bear this weight of trial? How long could she endure the suffering of her progeny? Margaret, the eldest child, suddenly screamed and tried to push herself deeper into the couch as if crawling away from something. Gross turned toward her and found her eyes fixed on the space beside the couch where he sat now. Nothing occupied that space but an empty rocking chair. Margaret continued to scream and cried out that she could see it. She could see the old man's spirit sitting there in all of its decay. The chair stood empty to everyone else, but Margaret clung to to her fear and her certainty that something horrible and dead was sitting inside of it. As Peggy tried to calm her daughter, everyone, adults and children alike, recoiled when a horrid stench suddenly permeated the air. It smelled of rot and mold, of feces and blood. The cloud covered the room quickly, like a rogue wave striking anyone unfortunate enough to smell it. People looked up from their dry heaving and covered faces only when the rocking sound started. That empty chair was now moving gracefully. Its joints squeaked as it rolled along the rockers. After several seconds the movement changed. It became noticeably less smooth. Now it was jerky and too fast, uncoordinated, chaotic. It continued until the speed seemed completely unnatural. Gross could only compare it to a stop motion movie trapped in fast forward. Finally, the movement ceased when the chair rocked and slid backward until it slipped, slammed into the wall, leaving a dent in its wake. Silence then replaced all the noise, and at the same time the smell that had so suddenly disgusted everyone dwindled away without a trace. The haunting had continued for weeks, attracting more and more attention. The Hodgson residence had become a museum of strangeness, and Peggy, desperate for answers, could do little but allow visitors to just walk through at their ledger. Such attention, predictably brought skepticism and skeptics willing to venture into the tempest and to quiet fears of ghosts attacking the good English family. Journalists from the Daily Mail and the Times came and went, taking little evidence of fraud with them. At one point the BBC arrived with an entire documentary film crew. But that visit didn't really last long. Cameramen complained about wires disappearing and footage becoming corrupted, also equipment just refusing to function despite everything being in order. Now some took this as evidence of a hoax. Children tampering with equipment to keep the lie from being exposed. But others reached the exact opposite conclusion. As you might imagine, these more credulous crew members, Convinced by the genuine terror on the family's faces, decided that it must all be real. Wanting to save themselves from the demon, they left and never came back. Maurice Gross, however, stayed and continued collecting audio recordings and photographs. 2000 hours of audio and entire rolls of film that apparently caught or narrowly missed key moments. By then, skepticism had vanished from his mind. But perhaps it shouldn't have. There was one woman, Anita Gregory of the Society for Psychical Research, who left the house convinced, at the very least, of Maurice Gross's total inability to remain objective. She criticized the paranormal claims, certainly, but she criticized her colleagues methods. And even more sharply, she accused him of being too eager to discover unseen realities. To her, that eagerness manifested as confirmation bias. Though she could not disprove the paranormal, she believed more ordinary explanations might still account for all the turmoil. Materialist psychologists conducted tests on the girls, especially Janet, looking for evidence of personality disorders or schizophrenia, anything that might explain the events. Some tests proved inconclusive, while others led researchers to suggest that Janet was, quote, unquote, subconsciously seeking attention. They didn't believe she lied maliciously. Rather, they thought she lied without even realizing it. They argued that the attention she received, despite the misery it caused, still satisfied her desire for focus. The girl, they said, just wanted eyes on her. As long as she had that, some part of her remained pleased. Other objections were less nuanced. A wave of debunking attempts relied on familiar explanations. Janet was just consciously lying. The children moved the furniture together as a team. Someone used ventriloquism to create the illusion of a disembodied voice at the very bottom. These skeptics could not escape the conviction that the Enfield poltergeist was nothing more than a practical joke. Opposing the skeptics stood Peggy and Maurice Gross. Peggy testified that her children were not unruly enough to stage such elaborate tricks. And offered her sober account of the horrors that she herself had witnessed. Yet her testimony carried little weight with critics. Gross, however, attempted to provide something more concrete. In front of the many witnesses. During a period of high activity. Gross instructed Janet to take a large gulping of water and hold it in her mouth. And she did so. To everyone's astonishment, the haunting voice continued to emerge from the girl or from somewhere, even though she couldn't speak. After about five seconds, she swallowed the water and resumed her possessed demeanor. Yet even while she swallowed, the voice neither broke nor Paused. To those present, this seemed undeniable proof of spiritual activity. To others who later read about the experiment, it still just appears crude and inconclusive. What master ventriloquist, they ask, cannot speak while drinking water? Gross and Peggy always give the same reply. Janet was not a master ventriloquist. She was 11 years old. Against all this evidence for authenticity, however, there does stand a few points supporting the hoax theory. On one occasion, for example, Janet was caught bending spoons on the kitchen table and rearranging furniture when she thought that no one was looking. In adulthood, she has readily admitted that she and her sister Margaret faked some of the activity. But she always adds the same caveat, that most of it was real. When asked to estimate the proportion of genuine events versus fraudulent ones, she places it at 98% real and only 2% faked. When asked why she faked anything at all, she explains that she feared people would lose interest whenever the activities slowed for long stretches of time. Like her mother, she wanted relief. She wanted answers. And she knew the quiet periods were only gaps in the terror. But she was worried that others would interpret them as proof that the haunting had ended or had just been fake the whole time. So on a few instances, she staged small tricks to ensure her would be rescuers wouldn't abandon the case. Naturally, that confession has cast a heavy shadow of doubt over the entire affair. Yet much remains unexplained and if the accounts are true, perhaps unexplainable within any framework except the paranormal. The Enfield poltergeist events continued in much the same fashion for about another year. Maurice Gross never left and his convictions never changed. Eventually, another researcher joined him, a fellow named G. Guy Playfair. Together the two men gathered what would amount today to terabytes of data pointing toward a paranormal explanation. Playfair later wrote the book on the subject called this House Is Haunted. Beyond these principal investigators stands the unanimous voice of the Hodgson family, affirming the truth of what they experienced in adulthood. Janet Hodgson still insists that although fabricating some events, the most terrifying, terrifying ones were truly real. The infamous investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren also visited the house at one point during the height of the haunting and claimed to sense a dark presence. Lorraine, who was a self professed medium, you'll remember, said of the entity, this isn't just a restless spirit. This feels demonic. Yet beyond these testimonies and a handful of similar stories, little more can be said with certainty. In the middle of 1978, someone attempted an exorcism, but it produced no results. The Hodgsons eventually just resigned themselves to their circumstances. They didn't move. And then Janet learned to live with her supposed possessor. Until one day the activity began to fade. By early 1979, when Janet spent more time away from the house with friends because of getting older and knowing people at school, the disturbances stopped altogether. The family remained at 284 Green street for several more years until finances finally allowed them to move. Since then, later residents have not reported anything unusual. The enormous number of witnesses, the countless police statements, the skepticism, the admitted fraud, the unwavering belief in authenticity, the sheer macabre dread of it all, and then its quiet fading into nothing have secured the Enfield poltergeist a lasting place in the Western imagination. What, if anything, really happened? Frankly, we don't know.

[B]

Wolf man into the disguise Giant angel cries we hear other lies Moon ey children here to steal your soul Bigfoot skin walkers are from my control Hunting God's FS I'm so scared all this

[A]

mystery I'm not prepared I take. Want more Haunted Cosmos? Then make your way over to Patreon, where you can get early access to our content, as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with Brian and myself. So go to patreon.com haunted cosmos and sign up now.